Dhruva Almighty

Bharat Ratna :: Why the nomination framework itself needs to change!!

2013-11-20T19:50:00.001-05:00

Bharat Ratna (literally meaning Indian Jewel), as we know, is the highest civilian award given in India. However I am not really sure if the framework from which it is given reflects the importance that it has.

This week it was pretty evident on media and facebook when Bharat Ratna was awarded to Sachin Tendulkar and it started a series of fierce debates on whether he deserved the award, or whether there are other sportsperson like Dhyanchand (and numerous others) who should have been honored before him, or even whether politicians like Vajpayee should have been instead honored.

Although I donot agree on the debate of Sachin getting the award - In my opinion (and almost all of my friends, barring few) it was a no brainer giving Bharat Ratna to him, given his contribution to world of cricket. He is undoubtedly one of the best in his field and a role model and inspiration to billions across all states/languages/geographies of India. But I will stop on Sachin-o-rama here as I dont want this post to focus on Sachin but on Bharat Ratna in general.

In fact, this post was really triggered today when I saw US president Obama announcing 16 "Presedential Medal of Freedom", which is highest civilian honor in US - and noticed the contrast between those two awards being given.

I noticed many things that totally surprised me as I was not aware about those, so I am putting those below alongwith how I think it should be changed (my main source of information is wiki for Bharat Ratna and US Presedential Medal of Freedom)

1. Who should nominate for the award?
Currently this is recommended by Prime Minister to President. I think this itself is the root of many problems. A ruling party (or prime minister) judgement would always be biased and will not reflect the real picture. For example, many in Congress party do not even acknowledge that Vajpayee is worthy of Bharat Ratna.

I think nomination process should be changed so that -
a) Certain number of awards should be voted by the member of parliaments.
b) A fixed number of awards should be nominated by President (this would included personalities who are not popular etc)

Also, this could be wrong both in India and US, because in both the countries it's the ruling party that is making these decisions without consulting the parliament.

2. Which all area of fields should get the awards?
In India, it's typically politicians who get these awards. This is pathetic, it's like from a country of billion people we dont produce excellence in other fields and we only have excellence in politics.. this is so far from the truth and even funny to note that we have "excellence in politics".
This whole situation gives the impression of "you scratch my back and I will scratch yours", which is what politicians seem to be doing all these years along. This has got to change, and recently they modified it to include sportsperson etc but I think still lot is left to be done on this front including awarding those who were missed all these years.

USA has a striking contrast here as they award it in almost all area of fields and politics is a small part of that.

3. How many awards can be nominated per year?
Wiki says that maximum 3 persons per year can be nominated.
This again, I think is very less number for a country of billion people. I also heard a debate on TV that increasing the number of awards would dilute its importance, but I dont agree to it and I think increasing it to 5 or 10 (or even 20) will NOT dilute the importance of award.
Note the fact that we have other categories (Padmu Bhusan etc), but I still think there are too many indian personalities out there who deserve Bharat Ratna (and many more who deserve Padma Bhushan etc) and that will be only possible if this number is increased.
We can also notice USA here (a country of 300 million - that is one third of India) giving around 10-15 Medal of Honors every year! Something to learn how should we honor our best.

4. Should the award be nominated every year?
Hell Yes!!
Since there are only 3 awards given every year so we would assume it's awarded every year, right? So wrong!

It looks like many year there are no awards given, in the recent history no Bharat Ratna awarded in following years -
2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2000

Only One award given in the year 2008

And Only two awards given in the years 2001, 2014

So, in Summary, in last 15 years, only 5 Bharat Ratnas have been given.
In contrast, in USA it looks like 120-150 "Medal of Honor" awards have been given in last 15 years. I could not find exact number.

4. Should foreign citizens be awarded?
Hell No!
There are global awards like Nobel Prize for global citizens. I am not sure what are we achieving giving Bharat Ratna to Nelson Mandela - no disrespect, I have great respect for him - but that does not mean handing over the highest Indian award to him!?

If absolutely necessary, perhaps we should have a new category called "Vishwa Ratna" (World Jewel) to honor those.

5. Special Case to mention - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
One last surprising fact I noticed on wiki is that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was posthumously awarded Bharat Ratna in 1992 and then taken back (I guess by Supreme Court directive) as it cannot be proven if he is alive or dead. What!! I mean not giving an award is better than giving one and taking it back. But I dont have a solution for this as supreme court judgement cannot be overruled and trying to give the same award again to him will cause the same confusion again.

In Summary, there is definitely merit in the larger debate about Bharat Ratna and I just hope someone from Government read this post and bring about the changes :) ... but that is not going to happen - so we are stuck with this system throughout our life and we should expect similar debates and controversies throughout our life, that is, as soon as it is awared to someone deserving (like Sachin), rather than honoring him will be dishonor to question him or her.

Wealth Inequality in America, Perception vs Reality

2013-10-01T23:48:00.004-05:00

Note to self - as I look through my blog, I notice I haven't penned down a single post in last 2 years. I can take an excuse of my busy life in last 2 years, but I regret it too and have been thinking for quite some time to break the silence and return to blogosphere. So, this hopefully would be the first post in series of more to come in days/weeks ahead.

Anyways, this post was triggered as I watched a show on hulu of Larry King interviewing Former American Labor Secretary Robert Reich about Income Inequality in America.

Now, I have heard and read about "Top 1% of America" for last many years, but have not payed too much attention to that debate.

However as I watched the show further, this Robert guy really got my interest, so I googled (or rather YOUTUBed) him out, and watched few short videos on him.

There was one video which blew my brains off, and that really caused me to blog this, watch this below before reading any further -

As you can see on those eye popping graphics, the income inequality gap is not only real but it's mind boggling. This also intrigued me further to google out what is the minimum wage at USA - and found it to be $7.25 per hour.

Now ... few years back this number did not make any impression on me - in fact it meant nothing to me, as I did not know about cost of living at USA, in fact I did not know about cost of running a family at all as I did not have one (being a bachelor / dependent on parents)

But now having personally lived at USA for many years, I can imagine that a salary below 40-50k per annum in USA would mean a decent life but almost no saving. A salary around 30K per year would mean not a decent life, rather a struggling one where one would need to decide between house rent vs other needs of life .. and so I cannot imagine life of someone living on $7.25 per hour which calculates out to be less than 15K per annum. Ouch!

Now, on one hand I can certainly argue that back home at India - there are many people not even getting this much. A country like India is a real place to understand the issue of poverty and it will be scary to think about minimum wage there and on top of it the reality that much of the Indian population does not even get that. Note that Unemployment is another big issue both in USA and more so at India - but unemployment is not the focus of my this post, so I will take liberty of completely bypassing that in this post and just focus on the "working" people and if they are getting the wage they deserve.

What intrigued me here is not really the minimum wage or unemployment - but putting that in light of the income inequality ... thinking that as a society we are letting a certain fraction of people go crazy rich while there are equally hard working people who are probably not getting the wage they deserve due to labor market demand and supply equation.

Here is the trailer for the documentary of Robert Reich, hopefully I will watch that too someday -

Brand Loyalty vs Patriotism (in America vs in India)

2011-11-06T03:13:00.007-05:00

Last year I saw an ad "Imported From Detroit" which has become my favourite since then.

Every now and then I find myself searching for it on youtube and just listen to it - love the style, the sense, the message.

However from the day I saw it - there is one question that keeps coming back to me too.

Should the (american) consumers avoid cars built by Honda, Nissan or Toyota - just because they are "foreign" cars? As far as I know most of these companies have factories in America - and even if they don't, even if they are "purely imported" - shouldn't consumers focus on what consumers should focus on - the usuals - quality, price etc.

The top rated comment on above video on youtube is --

"Buy American made" The three most powerful words of our time. Let's do this people. GOD BLESS AMERICA. USA baby!

One of the reason I raise this question is because in India I see just the opposite.

Indians, on other hand, are embracing products from across the world with pleasure and without any sense of guilt. They love to wear clothing from international brands, they love going to "foreign restaurants" - McD, Pizza Hut, TGI Friday. They love to see new car launches everyday from companies across the world - and then go buy those cars in numbers ranging from hundreds to thousands. (which is why those companies are launching in India, to tap the so called "emerging economy")

Bollywood is another example where I see this - apart from production houses and international crew - there are actors totally "foreign" who are being tried out and are successful and loved in India - whether it's Barbara Mori in Kites, whether it's Nargis Fakhri in upcoming Rockstar. They are brand among themselves.

I am not sure, maybe this has something to do with the fact that India was a closed economy for more than 40 years after Independence - so Indians know pretty much how it feels to have all "Made in India" products ... they pretty much know how it feels not to have a choice.

There was a time in India too when "Made in India" products were being promoted - under leadership of Gandhiji, while India was struggling for freedom. Among other things it was probably identity crisis for Indians - but it is hard to believe that America is struggling with same kind of identity crisis right now?

This is kind of taboo question - I have many american friends on my list, so I didn't really want to raise this question - but shouldn't American embrace products from across the world with pleasure and without any sense of guilt ... and shouldn't get into a mindset which actually pushes them back on pages of history?

Brand Loyalty and Patriotism are two separate topics - wouldn't it be better for the world if we keep them separate?

LinkedIn is new Facebook, while Facebook is really becoming Orkut!

2011-02-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

WARNING: a long and probably pointless post :) so read only if you have nothing better to do :)

I signed up on Orkut and Facebok at almost same time (in 2006) ... but still in my initial first three years - like most of my friends - I was mostly active on Orkut and I had no activity on Facebook.

You will think the migration from Orkut to Facebook was because of the user interface of Facebook ... the world famous "facebook wall" :) that pulled me and most people to FB ... which is partly correct. I definitely liked the way I can share links, videos, pictures and even thoughts and comments ... and my friends and family can "like" and "comment" on all those things.

That was really a great innovation from Facebook.

But that was not what converted me.

What converted me was that all my friends started signing up on Facebook and started "using" it too ... so while it was the user interface that pulled me up, it was my friends presence that made me stick to FB.

I remember at that time I posted a status on FB saying "Facebook is new Orkut" - I meant the experience of social networking.

I also put a permanent Orkut Status pointing to my Facebook page - much like "Out for Lunch" comment you see on a shop.

Orkut did realize much later that it is loosing and started fixing things up, but that was too late by then.

Soon I found myself growing farm, helping my wife, mom, dad, brother, cousins and friends on virtual Farming - until it became too much an obsession - and I really had to block Farmville :-)

Apart from that "farmville phase" I really liked the way I could share information with people close to me ... and the world seemed beautiful!

Or so I thought ... unless one fine day I logged in and saw certain changes.

I saw changes on Facebook wall page - the layout was changed - if I may say so "forcefully".

The privacy settings where changed - If I may say so "forcefully".

It was like you had a home sweet home, which you absolutely adored ... and some outsider came and changed everything!

What was worse that "The outsider" didnt stop there ... he went ahead and opened all doors and windows and then left - for the whole world to see what you are doing which you intended to share with your close family and friends.

I remember that phase where everyone who understood the changes - was panicked and had to go and review each and every door (privacy settings) and make sure they are locked up.

On the other hand - there must be millions oblivion to the privacy changes - who are not aware how and what of their private information is out there public now because of those changes.

What makes it worse it "The Outsider" did not stop there and kept "innovating" and changing the look and feel of FB every month or so ... when you convince yourself to the new look, they will "innovate" and another look and force on you.

They will promote worthless and mindless applications and let people post them on my wall.

It is ironic that while two years back I made the comment "Facebook is becoming new Orkut" in a positive way - now I will have to say the same comment in a negative way.

Because Lately I have felt that Facebook is slowly becoming as cluttered as Orkut once became - and the FB experience is diminishing.

I thought that I am too small to "fight against the system" and hence will need to accept whatever form it may come in .... but what I did not know was there is another world that was being built out there, which I was totally Unaware of.

That was linkedin.

Linkedin was earlier supposed to be a "professional networking" site - everything about linkedin had an "official" feeling about it - the look, the people on there, the "profile" - everything.

But sometimes in last 6 months, they have ripped off the "facebook wall" experience - by just copying pasting it - and to be frank first I laughed about it!

I laughed earlier because I saw LinkedIn as a "loser" who I saw copying a well known "wall" concept from facebook - but later I appreciated them and see them as a winner because I see there are people who are actually using those tools to network - to brand themselves - to brand their companies - to share ideas.

What Linkedin has done correct here I think is so far they have a limited number of applications - twitter, books and so on - which are relevant to professional networking.

Plus since it is a "professional networking" site - so all those stupid kind of facebook applications and status (I am sleeping, I am shitting and so on) are not there.

Facebook wall on other hand has become a mockery of comical applications like "how beautiful you are", "how will be your day today" and countless worthless applications - almost all of them I have blocked, but even then my wall seems like a garbage dump.

On the other hand - I think one feels a sense of responsibility before posting anything on Linkedin - so I believe it will be "clean" at least for some time to come.

This all made me think that "nothing is final" and we have not reached end of "social networking" world - it is still in innovation phase.

So, as you can see, there is no real point being made in this post - the only thing that I wanted to point out that "nothing is final" - when Orkut came I thought that is it in terms of innovation (why didnt I think of it) - then facebook came I thought that is it in terms of innovation (why didnt I think of it) - and now linkedin is innovating and may include certain features - which may not make them as popular as facebook, but will earn them a respectable place in the crowd of social networking sites.

Only time will tell. But so far I am loving the social networking experience - be it on facebook or twitter or linkedin.

To end this post I would share one dilemma I had initially - that was to choose between these three social networking sites - Facebook, Linkedin and twitter - but then I found there are many tools available to help you ... and you dont really need to choose, but to integrate all those ... the one tool I have liked most is "TweetDeck" - but that probably deserves a separate post.

The Saraswati Puja of Bhandaridah (from late 1980s)

2011-02-07T20:39:00.003-05:00

I noticed on my "Google Calendar" that today is Vasant Panchmi.

And I am getting so out of touch that I only remembered the name of this festival but I didnt remember what it is celebrated for. (yeah I hate to admit, but that is the truth)

So I googled again and opened up wikipedia:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasant_Panchami

Vasant Panchami (Devnagari:वसन्त पञ्चमी), sometimes referred to as Basant Panchami or Shree Panchami (Devnagari:श्रीपञ्चमी), is aHindu festival celebrating Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, music and art. It is celebrated every year on the fifth day (Panchami) of the Indian month Magh (January-February), the first day of spring.

And when I saw "Saraswati Puja" - I was like wow!! That was one of the most celebrated festivals we used to have in Bhandaridah in late 1980s. How can I forget that?

I pinged my wife and here is the exact conversation that followed-

[ me ] : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasant_Panchami
[wifey]: i know
[wifey]: i used to wear yellow maxi on this day
[wifey]: when i was kid
[wifey]: it was v pretty dress
[wifey]: :-)
[wifey]: when is it?
[ me ] : today
[wifey]: oh
[wifey]: how do u know
[wifey]: do u celebrate ?
[ me ] : in bhandaridah saraswati puja was a big thing
[wifey]: hmmm
[ me ] : bachcha log used to take chanda from mohalla mohalla
[wifey]: :)
[ me ] : in our home - papa will easily give 10-20 rs
[wifey]: for me it was eating yellow things like tehri and wearing yellow clothes
[ me ] : mom will give 2 rs
[wifey]: :)
[ me ] : and so much bargaining mom will do
[ me ] : aunty 2 rupaye mein kya hoga
[ me ] : 2 rupaye bohot hai
[wifey]: :)
[ me ] : some regular bachcha log knew - (they were actually our old neighbours bhaiya log - babli bhaiya, etc)
[ me ] : they will ask me - vishu, papa hain kya?
[ me ] : achcha nahin hai - humlog baad mein aayenge
[wifey]: hmmm
[ me ] : then there will be small pandals in each mohalla of bhandariday
[ me ] : it will be holiday in school
[ me ] : so me & Amit will go each & every pandal and eat prasad
[ me ] : joined by other school friends

You can see just a simple mention of this festival caused both of us to start telling our own stories!! :)

I was thinking to myself it is amazing how important were these days in our life - but now we are not even aware that today is vasant panchmi / saraswati puja.

I wondered if 20 years from now same thing will happen - things which are absolutely dear to us now will become totally irrelevant 20 years from now?

It made me more nostalgic and I took the last arrow from my "tarkash" wikimapia/google maps - and zoomed in on Bhandaridah.

View Larger Map

I zoomed in / zoomed out with awe - wondering if it's still the same!?

I promised myself (yet once again, for the thousandth time) - that I will go back to visit this place, which is absolutely close to my heart.

I made a new promise to myself that not only will I go, but I will go there regularly - like every year or so!!!!!

To top it all - I made final promise to myself that when I retire, I will settle down at this place - on the bank of Damodar river - in a nice little cottage and spend last days of my life there. (which I think is not even possible, all the areas I know in Bhandaridah is government owned or politicians affected!) .. btw that reminded of the dialogue from Swades "apne hi pani mein pighal jaana baraf ka muqaddar hota hai, samjha dena us chokre ko!" - roughly translates to it's ice destiny to melt and mix on its own water :D (sorry for the poor translation)

:coughs: ... finally I just snapped out of the dream and remembered I have to finish things and I pinged my wife again-

[ me ] : will talk to you later on this
[ me ] : need to get back to work
[wifey]: :-)

.... and thus I came back to reality!!!

Obama politics on Bush Tax Cuts?? (Hot Issue for 2012 Elections!!??)

2010-12-07T22:08:00.004-05:00

For those of my friends who dont know about Bush Tax Cuts - read here.

Prez Obama fought his 2008 election with this promise that he will stop these taxes - especially for "Rich People".

But now he is doing the opposite, he is extending those same taxes by TWO YEARS!!!

So yesterday when I read this news - I was wondering why Obama will extend Bush Tax Cuts if everyone is convinced not to - I guess even public polls show that 70% Americans are totally against further tax cuts for "rich".

I saw this video with same sentiment of frustration and question-

BUT today Obama did a press conference to clarify and when I saw this video IT STARTED TO MAKE SENSE -

I think Obama is setting this up as a "HOT ISSUE" for 2012 elections.

After a dismal performance in 2010 mid elections - he might be a bit shaken.

In 2008 he fought mainly as anti-bush issues and "Hope for Change".

But what issues will be there in 2012?

This might be the first issue he is setting up for 2012, and maybe more issues like this will come up next year - when he will "cave in", just so that he can show how "bad" Republicans are and how "good" and "sensible" Democrats are.

Think about it!

How to effectively use twitter!!? (FIVE suggestions)

2010-10-23T20:52:00.000-05:00

Note - this post is supposed to be both a joke and source of information at same time. :)

It is a joke because twitter gyan is coming from someone like me who hardly knows anything about twitter or microblogging.

Although I got a twitter account more than 2 years back.. but it was only recently that I started getting more and more active on twitter and actually even I am in middle of learning to effectively use this amazing tool - I am still not a twitaholic :) if I may say so, although not necessarily a bad thing I would say.

But still this post is supposed to be informative for people who have not yet adopted twitter, they constantly see it mentioned in traditional media - they are wondering from the sidelines, what is this ho-halla all about and is this for real?

Let me start by mentioning that this week I got few twitter replies from few Indian celebrities - and I will hate to admit that it really felt good :) ... that is probably an understatement - I was actually grinning like a three year old girl :) ... even my wife asked me what happened after seeing that unusual grin on my face :)

The first twitter reply came from a popular Indian blogger iPatrix who blogs here and twits here. The complete twit conversation can be followed here.

Second reply was by Academy Award nominee director Shekhar Kapur himself :) The complete conversation can be followed here.

Ok, enough of self promotion and congratulation. :) ... I will get onto the subject now.

As for any journey, it is best to ask yourself following questions as you start your twitter journey-

1. Who is your target audience?

If I take my example - I have roughly 300 friends at facebook/orkut/linkedin (same friends everywhere :)) - and I do have constant interaction with them on all these social networking sites - and I feel totally connected.

But same is not true for twitter? why? many reasons-

a) There is very less number of my friends who have signed up on twitter.

b) Even lesser number from those signed up are those who actually tweet. (because most of them signed up and then got inactive after 1-2 tweets)

c) Lastly, it is almost negligible is those who tweet something I can relate to and want to reply or retweet.

So that makes twitter totally unfit to interact with my real world friends.

And that leaves twitter as a platform to interact with "strangers" - or more specifically with real world celebrities!!

And probably that is the reason why it is so popular among the celebrities. Because they have such an easy medium to reach out to masses, get direct feedback from the people that matters most - "the public".

And for us also it is a great medium to get unbiased views from those larger than life celebrities - unfiltered and frank - some of them have god like stature and fan following.

And that brings answer to the first question we asked - one should use twitter mainly for celebrity following. (and that is my own personal opinion, you may agree or disagree - but I see twitter mainly for celebrity following)

Let's move on to the next question-

2. Do I really have time and energy to use twitter? Why another social networking tool after so many that I already use?

That is a very relevant question.

Since we already spend too much time online - facebook, google, RSS, news - all those things combined take almost all of our time - some of which we should spend in "real world" with "real people networking" that matters most :)

Twitter is really a "timepass" tool - it should be done at the time say when you have time to play solitaire or minesweeper, that is you dont have anything else useful to do.

That is the reason I really got active on twitter only after I bought iphone recently- I bring it out when I am really not doing anything and start reading tweets, replying and retweeting.

And probably that is the reason I will say is that twitter is a mobile application (although they do have rigorous desktop support) - but mobile is what brings best in twitter experience.

3. Ok, I am signed up on twitter and ready to follow celebrities - but how?

The key to remember here is whomever you "follow" on twitter will start showing up on your twitter homepage.

This is good and bad.

Good if you are really a big-die-hard fan of someone, then you will definitely want his twit to appear on your twitter homepage.

This is exactly what I tried in beginning ... since I dont have anyone particular I wanted to follow - so I tried following all of them!!

But then it made my twitter homepage cluttered with nonsense coming from all celebrities - most of which I didnt care about. That also made the more relevant tweets coming from my friends to get buried at back. (and there are very few of them as I mentioned already).

Twitter gods must have realized my dilemma as just then they introduced concept of "twitter lists" - where you can create a list of people, but you dont necessary follow them.

Hence I invested one of my weekends in trying that and burned a list of all Indian celebrities I wanted to follow through lists. (and I unfollowed all those celebrities too)

A note before I move on further - you dont need to invest your weekend burning a list like this. All you need to do is find a list created by anybody (I believe all lists are "public" by nature) and then use some of below tricks to "follow" it. It may again sound self-promotion, but you can follow my lists also if it saves you time.

Anyways, once I had those lists created - it opens up a new pandora box of opportunities how I want to follow those lists - which I am still experimenting with.

As a simple example - I created a mash up webpage - where all of the tweets show up real time - and that is one of my favourite timepass pages now. (rather than running here and there, just sit on this page and read them all).

When I got iphone, I tried few apps to find which one supports lists in a good way - and finally hit TweetDeck which has a good interface, just like I was looking for.

4. Setting the expectations correct!!

The last thing is that don't expect to start having real conversations with Shahrukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar :) - or any other celebrities. You can start by following (or as mentioned just "list"ing) and just reading there tweets. Then you can retweet some of their tweets to share with your own friends (followers).

If you reply to their tweets - then expect no reply from them - as they get thousand tweets like yours - so the only way all can be replied if they have hired someone to pose as them, which will then defeat the whole purpose.

5. Updating multiple social networking sites status

Again taking my example - I have facebook, orkut, twitter, gtalk, linkedin accounts - and so many more. Everywhere I want to update my status and obviously doing it one by one will be foolish thing. Again, I am still experimenting on this one.... one site I did find useful till now is ping.fm - a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap!

Having said all that, what are you waiting for ... get on the tweet bandwagon and start chirping ... i mean tweeting! :)

Future of Iphone - Small(S), Medium (M), Large (L), Extra Large (XL) ... or XXL!!

2010-10-19T21:08:00.007-05:00

I saw Steve Job's iphone keynote presentation three years back in 2007. (before it was launched and before it become a household name) ... at that time hardly anyone knew about iphone (that is among my friends), but I was impressed at this first presentation itself and totally sold out.

Last week I finally bought one for myself (yeah I know .. am probably the last one on earth to buy it) ... main reason for delay was I didnt think up until now that I will need a smartphone - I am connected to internet 24X7, my commute is 5 minute drive - hardly any travel - all that combined doesnt leave any room for smartphone use.

So there wasn't really a need.

But alas my last phone crashed, and I had to "upgrade" ... so I thought better get an iphone now! Why wait longer?

Then my greed grew :) and I was also thinking to get an ipad too - but again I dismissed it as I dont "need" it... but it led me to thinking.

I started downloading and experimenting with iphone apps - youtube, netflix, bbc and many games - while I was getting amazed it again caused my grey cells ringing and I started thinking more-

I thought it is amazing how unsatisfied we human beings are - 100 years back there was no medium for long distance communication. Then we invented Television, Phone, radio etc ... but we were not satisfied!!

We invented cellphone, internet ... but we were still not satisfied!!

Then we started merging all those technologies - so a cellphone is not only a phone, but it's a camera, laptop, radio (ipod), tv (youtube and netflix on iphone) - all combined on an IPHONE.

By the fast pace we are going - probably in next 5-10 years we will be done with this merging - then how will it all look like?

How will the electronic devices around us look like - say in 2020?

Then this ipad sarcastic image came to my mind-

This image, although so hilarious - but probably it is true.

I dont own an IPAD, but going by the presentations on apple website - it looks like ipad is nothing but a bigger IPHONE. (with almost the same features)

And maybe that is they key to our answer.

I asked myself if in future IPAD will replace IPHONE or whether IPHONE will replace IPAD.

But then I felt that the very obvious answer is - neither.

Both of them have got its own use. You can not carry an ipad in your pocket .. neither can you browse internet continuously on an iphone. (eye strain)

So if all those electronic devices will coexist then they will all have same functionality - because of the merging - the only difference will be the size.

So your Television will also be a phone and a camera. Your tablet will also be a television and a phone. And the phone which is already a mini-computer and a television.

And this is not a forecast for future ... this is already happening and we are probably in middle of it.

Based on this, the communication devices of future will be divided in categories based on Size alone-

1) Size Small communication devices (eg-iphone) - basically derivatives of cellphones

-basically a swiss army knife in your pocket ... will have all features with size constraints

- face to face video chat will be a norm

- probably GPS will also be just another app

2) Size Medium communication devices (eg-ipad) - basically derivatives of laptop/tablets

- you can make any phone call also through this

- watch tv on this if you dont want to disturb whole family

3) Size Large communication device (eg- internet enabled TVs) - basically derivatives of TVs

4) XXL - is obviously the large flatscreens of today :) , but having all other features that say an iphone has.

I vaguely thought of below situation, so thought to put this too to end this post-

Imagine you are returning home from office. You are walking towards your car and you get a call from your dad - you pickup the call and while talking get into the car and then fix it as a GPS device, while you switch the call also to a face to face chat. Now you are driving while having face to face chat with dad (which sounds a bit dangerous too ... like texting while driving, but that is a discussion for another day)

You reached home in 20 minutes and your dad wished to talk to your younger son who is playing scrabble on his ipad - now rather than handing him the phone, you just divert the call to the ipad and then your dad talks with his grandson while also playing a few moves on the scrabble game he was playing.

After 5 minutes chat, your dad wishes to talk to rest of the family who are in living room and watching "XX got talent" (where XX is the country you live in :) )

Again - rather than passing phone one by one, just divert the call to your TV and use TV remote to accept - and voila your grandpa is on life size video chat on TV. Talking with whole family like he is just on the other side of balcony window. :) ... since your daughter is big fan of the TV show - so you may want to keep the TV show on mute on half of the screen too.

I can keep on thinking and adding more, but I guess I will stop here :)

Thanks for reading.

List of Top Twitter Indian Celebrities

2010-05-21T19:11:00.007-05:00

Lately there has been a flurry of Indian Celebrities on twitter!

First it was Shashi Tharoor who caught everybody's attention by being "different" net-savvy kind of Indian politician, who garnered too much attention initially, but then probably fell in controversy trap by his holy cow comments and then finally some more controversy for being open and candid - as they say "going against party lines" - which finally did cost him his cabinet seat too.

Then there was a flurry of Bollywood and Media personalities - Konkona Sen, Gul Panag, Barkha Dutt, Rajdeep Sardesai - so on and so on. I myself used to follow most of the Indian celebrities earlier, but then I felt that they were creating too much "noise" on my twitter page! ... lately I created twitter lists for them and then burnt those list on RSS and I read it on my feed reader (probably deserve a separate post to explain). However I got luxury to "unfollow" those celebrities on twitter because of above trick. (actually felt good to unfollow a celebrity lol ;-) )

Now, lately we are seeing the gods themselves joining the twitter - likes of Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik, Salman etc ... "celebrity" is actually a very small word for these people, they enjoy nothing less than God stature in India. I think this will cause chain reaction for Indian twitter scene, causing more and more celebrities to join twitter - and hence more and more (usual) people (the aam aadmi) to join twitter too!

Anyways, I wanted to find out which Indian celebrities have most number of followers ... where they stand compared to their global counterparts etc etc. I searched a little on internet but didn't found any satisfactory result - so I knew will need to make my own list :(

So, here is a compilation - an excel sheet - of top twitter accounts from India. It took me a while to create this excel, but I guess it was totally worth it. (I guess I will keep updating it from time to time too.)

Note - Currently it has mostly bollywood entries only - I plan to add popular bloggers, media personalities, Indian journalists etc to make this list more complete, so do watch out this space. (if you find anyone missing, please mention on comments and I'll add). Also, the 2nd last column in this sheet gives you the twitter link - in case you want to follow them individually. And the last columns gives you my twitter LIST link - in case you want to follow them thru LIST.

Again, this was manually created -so it doesn't update automatically as #followers will increase/decrease in future. Here is a direct link to the sheet.

Postscripts-

I used twitaholic to find out "Global Twit rank", although I guess there are few more sites which provide similar service of ranking twitter users based on number of followers. The first thing I notice - American celebrities have most number of followers, Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga ... you have them all with more than 1 million followers. This mainly reflects the internet penetration of America. India, as we know, has the worst internet penetration of the worlds, so it is not surprising that all the celebrities of India has less than 1 million followers.

I looked up twitaholic to find what is needed to be on Top and I found -

To reach Global Top 100 - more than 1,548,258 followers are needed
To reach Global Top 200 - more than 1,126,051 followers are needed
To reach Global Top 300 - more than 570,537 followers are needed

Shashi Tharoor is the only Indian personality who is in to Top 300, I guess soon he will be joined by the gods (Sachin, Shahrukh etc) and together they will rise to Top 200, and then probably to Top 100.

However, it may take some time for this to happen - a county of billion people, growing at 8% GDP - we are moving inch by inch, slow and steady as they say! It needs more than one thing to happen - good level of Internet penetration, then a good number of people should be on social networking sites, and hence on twitter. Probably a good number of mobile based internet users helps twitter too, as I have read and heard that most twitter users like to use twitter via mobile.

Finally, a good number of celebrities should also be on twitter and they should be active too (which is already happening)... so let's see how it all goes!!

Final Postscript - there may be other PIOs (person of indian origin) and NRIs types, whom I have not included in this list. Eg - Padmasree , an IIT Delhi Alumnus has more than 1 million followers!

Updated Later-

I created a mashup page too - http://top-india-tweets.blogspot.com/

Sapnon Se Bhare Naina (eyes full of dreams!)

2010-05-16T15:48:00.004-05:00

So I watched "Luck by Chance" today ... and it was definitely a good movie.

If you have not seen it yet, I will highly recommend to watch it first before reading this post any further... I have few spoilers ahead (but not too many).

Since you are still reading, I will assume that you have either seen the movie already or want to take the "risk" of consuming whatever spoiler I have, so here you go-

This movie revolves around two struggling actors in Bombay - Vikram Jaisingh (Farhan Akhtar) and Sona Mishra (Konkona Sen Sharma) - who are from "humble background" but trying to make it big in Bollywood.

As any other good movie, this movie has multitude of other interesting characters very well played by some of the best actors in Bollywood.

Incidentally, one thing which I really like about this movie is how all the actors are perfectly chosen for the role they are playing - they have either gone through similar experience in real life, or being close to film industry they know it very well "how it feels".

For example - the two main leads Farhan and Konkona are perfect fit for the role they are playing. Konkona, I believe, has struggled a lot in real life to reach a position in film industry she is in today. I mean I don't know her biography but we all have seen the zeal for her acting in each character she has played. Farhan too, although success as Director/Producer in real life, is struggling to make his place an actor. I am always a fan of Konkona. And though I liked many movies Farhan has been involved with ... but now I have started to like Farhan too after seeing him in Karthik calling Karthik and Luck by Chance.

Then, apart from the main cast, we have Rishi Kapoor brilliantly playing a longtime successful bollywood producer "Romy Rolly" and Juhi Chawla as his wife "Minty Rolly" - both doing complete justice to their roles. Lastly, Dimple Kapadia as "Neena Walia" - a superhit star of 70s, Hrithik Roshan as a superhit star "Zaffar Khan" - are just few other samples from the movie!

Second thing which makes a movie special is "moments" which leave you deeply touched - like the way Farhan and Konkona keep encouraging each other, even if ridiculed by everyone else. or the one specific scene, which is title of this post too!

The "sapnon se bhare naina" scene ....!!!

So, it happens that Farhan distributes his photographs (portfolio as they call it) and then gets a call from a very big bollywood production house to meet next day. His happiness has no bounds, he tells everyone that he got the break he was waiting for ... and then next day he goes to the place with great anticipation and confidence - he opens the door and then finds that there are like 100 more people called for the audition! ... This is a shock both to him and audience (like me) as we assumed that he had got the break. But, as they say, truth is never simple! ... the reality hits Vikram Jaisingh that nothing comes easy. A very aptly song is placed to capture the emotions "sapnon se bhare naina" - (brilliant song placement is the one thing that I like about bollywood movies, seriously :) ) - with that song playing - and in those 5 minutes - we see all emotions on Farhan's face - him entering the scene with full of confidence, getting heartbroken to see the competition, look on his face trying to restore his confidence, looking around to weigh the competition he is about to face, helping out few people who are probably not as deserving as him? (somebody who cannot write in english?) ... noticing new entrants to the scene who can pose significant challenge to him?

In short ... it is not just about him alone, it is about the competition. You can watch that scene here embedded -

The movie then unfolds in a way that we see why it is called "Luck By Chance" - we get to see that it is not just about the talent, but right things happening at right place at right time which makes "success". There are at least 5-6 events that happen which gets Vikram Jaisingh a lead role in the movie by a big production house. (I will let you watch the movie to find out what those events are) However, I can probably mention a chit-chat in the movie between Karan Johar (as Karan Johar) and Hrithik Roshan (as Zaffar Khan) - KJ says that most of the top bollywood actors are made because of sheer luck - Amitabh got Zanjeer only because 6-7 top actors rejected that movie. Shahrukh got Darr and Baazigar only because noone else at that time wanted to play such negative roles.

Still, the movie tells us that it is not luck alone which makes "success". Farhan tells Konkona (before he becomes star) that it is upto us to choose success and failures - at every point in life! It is like we have both the options open to us - and what we choose is what we get! And he is right, we all know it, it sounds too good to be true, but it is... we need to take the first step towards success, it will not come to us on its own ... right?

It reminds me of a doha by Kabirdas too -

“Jin Dhoondha Tin Paiyan, Gahire Pani Paith,
Main Bapura Boodan Dara, Raha Kinare Baith….”
Those who fear drowning cannot jump into the ocean and can’t get pearls and gems. But only those who are courageous enough to dive in the depth of ocean gets pearls and gems. One who is fearful of drowning simply sits near the bank, can not get anything and remains empty handed.

Anyways, LBC has interesting tidbits too ... like loads of other stars playing themself - Abhishek, Akshaye, Diya Mirza etc. - and their interesting reactions as events unfold. There is Shahrukh's special appearance too at almost the end of the movie - when Farhan has already become a big hit in Bollywood and then he meets SRK at a restaurant. SRK congratulates him and they sit together for light chit-chat. The conversation is interesting, As we know, SRK himself has come from very humble background - he is not any star son, but still the biggest bollywood actor currently - if I may say so. He gives simple tip to Vikram Jaisingh - "When success hits you, it's hard to have balance and control over it - but still - one thing is make sure that you dont forget your old friends and family, who in someway are part of your success, and still they are the only ones who will give you fair criticism without any bias"

Vikram Jaisingh realizes his mistake - because he too alienated love of his life "Sona", while trying to become a star. He then tries to fix it, but a very realistic and warm conversation happens between the two. The result is that they don't reconcile (final spoiler, but I think gone are the days when we wanted hero-heroine to have "happy ending", it feels good to have more realistic ending! And in final scene we see Konkona Sen happy and satisfied ... she is in a taxi going to do "what she likes most" to work in Filmcity, Bombay.... and closing titles start, leaving me thinking about what all that happened.

So, as you can see, I really liked the movie. I mean there are very few movies that leaves me thinking while credits are rolling :-D. And there are very few movies from Bollywood which may not be be big hits, but I genuinely like and remember for long time. like "Tum Bin" and "Swades" - LBC (Luck by chance) probably is not in that top league, but it leaves similar experience.

PS - It will leave this post incomplete if I don't mention the brilliant music by Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy. I feel ashamed to admit that it took me so much time to find this gem. You can listen here.

Indian Idol Season 5

2010-05-09T18:32:00.008-05:00

In a world of reality shows, there are few TV shows which have been my favorite all these years. One of them is the "Indian Idol".

I still remember the first few seasons when it was a new concept in India - reality show! - it was a fresh experience seeing "real" reactions of "real" contestants - watching them cry, watching them jump with joy - watching their journey from being an "aam aadmi" to become "celebrity"!

Actually at that time I didn't even know that it's a copy of "phoren shows" like the "American Idol" :) - and now once I know and even have seen few seasons of the American counterpart - I have felt that although there are uncanny resemblances but still the Indian version differs a lot from its American counterpart - I guess mainly because of the difference in Music. (American Music vs Indian Music)

Now, I am not an expert in Music, so I will not go dissecting the similarities and differences here ... rather, I will jump straightaway to the reason that triggered this post.

So - Sunday evening - they were showing Indian Idol on my american TV :) , and its been a while since I have seen it - so I said why not?

Looks like it was the round just after the "audition round" where there were around 21-25 contestants and judges had to select 12-15 out of them. It must not be a hard task for the judges as most of the contestants seemed mediocre to me - some of them sounded better than the others, but we'll see how it goes ... there was one thing I'll like to mention which irritated me was ... many contestants when asked "why do you want to become Indian Idol" - were saying it will make "mummy papa" happy :) ... literally, that was the answer! (lol :), nothing wrong with it, I mean it is good thing to be thankful to your parents, but still it felt like if they were lacking the confidence needed or probably just not have a good reason to mutter ... anyways, whatever!)

And there was nervousness! (which is understandable, but still) ... like there was one girl who tried to leave the show just because she didn't get time to prepare songs overnight ... like it happens the usual drama in a reality show, judges called Abhijeet Sawant (winner of first Indian Idol, and who is also hosting the current season) who gave an emotional speech of how much difficult was it at his time to win a show like that... so any contestant who really wants to win has go through all the challenges... there is no shortcut!

Anyways, next came a fat girl on stage with someone (his dad?) holding her hand and who looked more nervous than anyone on the show so far! ... wtf! ... just watch this video first before reading any further

First see video#1 roughly starting from 4 minutes 15 seconds ... and then go on to video#2 )

So, you have seen the video? right? if not, I will recommend first see the video then read the rest of the post.

Anyways ... so I really thought she is too nervous, that is why someone is holding her hand. But then Smita told me probably she is blind, so probably someone from Indian Idol team just helped her to reach till stage.

Then before I could think any further, judges asked her to sing a song "Namak Ishq Ka" which I have never heard of.... and she started singing ....

Now ... I really had a "Susan Boyle Moment" when she started singing ... her voice has such an amazing folk touch ... plus Indian folk music is something which I am personally very fond of, probably everyone is ... I think she did an amazing performance ... all the judges were visibly impressed ... Anu Malik commented that sounded like she had the most "pakad" on the "surs" among all the contestants they had that day. Another thing he mentioned, which I felt too, was that she emphasized very correctly on correct words in a correct manner - woh kehte hain na ki dil ki awaaz dil se aa rahi thi - I was really impressed.

So, like any "front pankti darshak" I immediately told Smita - she is going to be the winner of this season.

The only thing which both me and Smita didn't like about her (just a little) is the way she dissed at small towns ... lol :) ... "chote shahar ke log ... ek doosre ko kaatne mein lage rahte hain" ... but that is all right I guess, the frustration comes in if you have talent and you don't get chance.

Anyways, I see lot of potential in Meghna, so wish her best of luck ... All the best to other contestants too which I have probably not heard too much, and who will give good challenge to Meghna.

That's all I wanted to say in this post too :) ... all "Indian Idol" fans out there - fasten your seat belts and get ready for another exciting season of Indian Idol.

May the best contestant win!:)

Added later-

I'll just like to mention another contestant - a boy called Sattar Khan - whom I first heard on facebook/youtube.

That boy looked like he just came out of the street ... or rather (as he told) his village having no electricity or any other connection to "outside world". I mean he even looked like he had no formal training for singing, no guidance .. probably even never been to so called "civilized world" - but he did sounded like he had lots of potential!

So, it was painful to see him going out today .. without any mention (there was no drama ... yeah, first I complain about drama and when there is none I ask why?).

There are much more boys like him on streets of India who have so much potential on so many things - they all just need proper grooming and opportunity - I blogged about it once before too.

So I just hope Sattar Khan gets a good teacher who grooms his talent - and Sattar makes a comeback someday.

Din Hai Suhana Aaj Pehli Taarikh hai ..!! (It's a beautiful/lovely day as it's first day of the month!)

2010-05-01T06:18:00.007-05:00

Kishore Kumar, as we know, has many gems to his credit, his movies and songs are funny as hell, like this one "pehli taarikh hai" ... :) ...

For those who dont know him, he is one of the most famous bollywood actors from 50s - one thing about him which fascinated me as a child was that he was master of many trades, he used to do many things in bollywood - eg Direct/Act/Sing etc etc. His singing abilities actually deserve many separate posts. One of the most melodious singers from Bollywood - his songs are like wine which are getting better by age ... I guess those songs are more popular in my generation than our parents generation, even if Kishore da belongs to our parents generation.

Btw, today is 1st May, and I saw this song (Din hai suhana) on facebook as somebody's status - it brought back smiles and memories! :)

I could not find any translation for this, so thought to translate it myself - so that other (non hindi) people can enjoy it. Plus it is one of the songs where I thought I can do justice in the translation ... without loosing the meaning in translation. (eg- once I tried translating "aaj mousam bada beimaan hai" on facebook, it was quite a disaster!). Still, if anyone has any suggestions/improvements, feel free to leave it in comments.

So, anyways, Here it goes .... first the song, then the translation done by me. (I found a youtube karaoke video as well, karaoke is not done by me)

Song

Din hai suhaana, aaj pehli tarikh hai :)
din hai suhaana, aaj pehli tarikh hai
khush hai zamaana, aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

biwi boli ghar zara jaldi se aana jaldi se aana
shaam ko piya ji hamein cinema dikhana hamein cinema dikhana
karo na bahaana haan bahaana bahaana
karo na bahaana aaj pheli tareekh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

kis ne pukara ruk gaya baabu
lala ji ki jaan aaj aaya hai kaabu aaya hai kaabu
o paisa zara laana o paisa zara laana .. laana laana
o paisa zara laana aaj pheli tareekh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

banda bekaar hai kismat ki maar hai
sab din ek hain roz e aitbaar hai
mujhe na sunana haan sunana sunana
mujhe na sunana aaj pheli tareekh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

dar ke saamne aaye mehmaan hain bade hi sharif hain
puraane meharbaan hain bade hi sharif hain puraane meharbaan hain
are jeb ko bachaana bachaana bachaana
jeb ko bachaana aaj pheli tareekh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

dil beqaraar hai soye nahi raat se
seth ji ko gham hai ki paiso chalo haath se
are lootega khazaana khazaana khazaana
lootega khazaana aaj pheli tareekh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

aye cinema waalon aao aao khel mazedaar hai
ho khel mazedaar hai ji khel mazedaar hai
agha hai bhagwan hai kishore kumar hai
nimmi geeta bali hai ashok kumar hai
nargis raj kapoor hai dilip kumar hai
geeton ka toofan hai naach ki bahaar hai naach ki bahaar hai
paanch aane ka das aana
paanch aane ka das aana
paanch aane ka das aana
are waapas nahi jaana jaana jaana
waapas nahi jaana aaj pheli tareekh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

mil jul ke bachchon ne baapu ko gherabaapu ko ghera
kehte hain saare ki baapu hai mera baapu hai mera
khilone zara laana khilone zara laana aaj pheli tareekh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

din hai suhaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
khush hai zamaana aaj pehli tarikh hai
pehli tarikh aji pehli tarikh hai

Translation (I tried my best not to loose the style, even if had to compromise a little on meaning)

It's a beautiful/lovely day as it's first day of the month :)
It's a beautiful/lovely day as it's first day of the month :)
The world is happy as it's first day of the month
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

Wife said - today come back home early - hey - come back home early
In evening - my darling - take me to the cinema - take me to the cinema
Don't make excuses - Don't make excuses
Don't make excuses - it's first day of the month !
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

"who called me" - the gentleman stopped
lalajee (community famous for lending) has finally caught him today at right time
Oh! .. give me my money .... give me my money ... give me give me ..
Give me my money - it's first day of the month!
The world is happy - it's first day of the month
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

This dude is unemployed - it's bad luck for him!
Everyday is same for him - everyday is Sunday for him!
Don't tell me - Don't tell me - Don't tell me ...
The world is happy - it's first day of the month
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

There are guests in front of my door ... they are very gentleman
They have done favours for me long time back - they are very gentleman
Hey ... save your pocket (money) - save save save
Save your pocket (money) - it's first day of the month
The world is happy - it's first day of the month
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

The heart is restless, have not slept since the night!
Seth ji (famous as misers) is saddened by the fact that money is going out of hand!
Oh! ... the treasure will be looted ... the treasure - treasure - treasure
The treasure will be looted - it's first day of the month
The world is happy - it's first day of the month
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

Hey Cinema goers - come - come, the game is fun!
The game is fun, hey, the game is fun
There is Aagha, Bhagwaan, Kishore Kumar
Nimmi, Geeta Bali and Ashok Kumar are there (Ashok Kumar is another very famous bollywood actor, and incidentally Kishore's brother)
Nargis, Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar are there
There is storm of Songs ... the dance is like springtime ... the dance is like springtime
Five Aana for TEN aana
Five Aana for TEN aana
Five Aana for TEN aana (referring to black ticketing, I hear was very popular in India earlier :) )
Oh! don't go back, don't go back
Don't go back - it's first day of the month
The world is happy - it's first day of the month
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

The kids got together and encircled their father! .. encircled their father
Everyone is saying - it's his father, it's his father
Please bring me some toys, bring me some toys - it's first day of the month
The world is happy - it's first day of the month
It's first day of the month ... hey ... it's first day of the month

Once again, my apologies for any errors.

PS - in 2nd last para there is reference to famous bollywood actors from 50s era - interestingly Kishore Kumar referred himself too as third person .... I thought to end this post by a slide of those people being referred to, who once ruled the silver screen-

HCL India Walk-ins on 24th & 25th April

2010-04-19T12:33:00.003-05:00

Email me for my "employee number" if you are interested-

HCL India Walk-ins on 24^th & 25^th April

Please find below the Walk-in events for April 24 & 25, 2010 (between 10 am and 4 pm). Share the Walk-in details with your referral and ask them to participate in any of these events by quoting your employee number.

Date, SPOC & Walk-in Venue	Skill-set	Details	Yrs of Exp.	Role	Work Location
April 24, 2010 Kingsly Stephen Baldwin Boys’ High School, No. 14, Hosur Road, Richmond Town, Bangalore	BIS / Data warehousing	Cognos, Informatica, MSBI, Datastage, Microstrategy	4-12	SSE / Lead / PM / Architect	Bangalore / Chennai / Noida
	Middleware	TIBCO, Oracle Fusion, Architect / PM any Integration	4-12	SSE / Lead / PM / Architect	Bangalore / Chennai / Noida
	Legacy Systems	Mainframe, AS400, Assembler	4-6	SSE / Lead	Chennai
	Testing	Performance / Automation Testing, Siebel Testing, SAP Testing	4-12	SSE / Lead / Test Manager / Architect	Bangalore / Chennai / Noida
	Content Management	Filenet, Documentum, Sharepoint, Interwoven	4-12	SSE / Lead / PM / Architect	Chennai / Noida

April 24 & 25, 2010 Vandana Nayar, Bangalore Priya D, Chennai HCL Technologies Ltd. The Senate, #33A Ulsoor, Bangalore HCL Technologies Ltd. No. 34 & 35 Haddows Road, Chennai	Java	Framework : Spring / Hibernate, Design Concepts, Preferred Domain: Banking	6-12	Lead / PM	Bangalore / Chennai


	C++	Knowledge of corresponding language features, STL, Pointers	4-12	SSE / Lead / PM	Bangalore / Chennai


	Oracle Database	Oracle Database Concepts PL/ SQL, Performance tuning preferably in UNIX environment	6-12	Lead / PM	Bangalore / Chennai


	SQL Server	SQL Database concepts, SQL queries, DTS	6-12	Lead / PM	Bangalore / Chennai


	Scripting	UNIX Scripting, Shell Scripting, Perl	4-12	SSE / Lead / PM	Bangalore / Chennai


	Sybase	Sybase Database Concepts, Queries, Performance Tuning	4-12	SSE / Lead / PM	Bangalore / Chennai


	Business Analyst	Risk & Compliance, Portfolio Management, Performance & Attribution, Clearing & Settlement, Corporate Action, Data Management, Custody, Asset & Wealth Management, commodities, Equities, Fixed Income, FOREX, Derivatives, Core Banking, Payment & Cards, Life Insurance & Pensions	6+	Associate BA / BA / Lead BA	Bangalore / Chennai


	Project Managers / Program Managers	PMP/ ITIL certification, with working experience on development and support project environment in the BFSI space	10+	PM	Bangalore / Chennai



April 24, 2010 Srinivasa Rao HCL Technologies Ltd. No. 184-188, Arcot Road, Vadapalani, Chennai	C++	C++ on Linux / Unix	3-12	LE / TL / TM	Chennai
	Embedded	Embedded C, CAN, RS232, Matlab, UML, Rhapsody, Embedded XP	4-10	LE / TL / TM	Chennai
	L2/L3	L2 / L3 Protocol Testing and Development	4-12	LE / TL / TM	Chennai

April 24, 2010 Kallol Chakraborty HCL Technologies Ltd. A-8&9, Sec-60, Noida	C / C++	GSM / GPRS / 2G / 3G / PBX / SIP –DECT / IP Phone Development	5-9	LE / TL / TM	Noida
	Device Drivers	Linux Drivers	5-9	LE / TL / TM	Noida
	Value Added Services(VAS)	MMSC / SMSC / VMS	5-9	LE / TL / TM	Noida
	ATG	ATG E-commerce	5-12	LE / TL / TM	Noida
	BI	SQL BI (SSRS / SSIS / SSAS)	5-9	LE / TL / TM	Noida
	Mobile Technologies	J2ME / Andriod / iPhone / Symbian / Blackberry	5-8	LE / TL / TM	Noida
	Automation Testing	Perl / Shell Scripting	5-8	LE / TL / TM	Noida

April 24, 2010 Girish Chandra VM HCL Technologies Ltd. Surya Sapphire, Plot no 3, 1st phase, Electronics City, Bangalore	Device Drivers	C programming with UNIX / Linux internals	5-10	LE / TL / TM	Bangalore / Chennai


		Device Drivers, Storage / network drivers, TCP / IP
		iSCSI, IPC mechanisms and multi-threading
	SAN	SAN Testing and SAN Development	5-10	LE / TL / TM	Bangalore

The Train Sequence from "Chronicles of Narnia"

2010-04-10T11:32:00.005-05:00

It was February 2007, I was on my flight from US to India - on a journey to start another journey (to get married :) )

Anyways, I was browsing through in flight movies, just killing time, and thought to watch one of the movies about "lions" and "witches" - which sounded quit boring as a concept!! :)

The movie started with what looked like a world war scene - "another world war movie" I thought.

So I was contemplating changing the movie, but then suddenly the tone of the movie changed.

In place of fighter aircrafts bombing European towns, now the scene was of a train going through green fields and hills - with four brothers and sisters on that train, leaving their home behind and going to a place unfamiliar to them!

The music being played on background was one of the most beautiful music I have ever heard (later I came to know it's "Evacuating London") - I think that scene/song combination had that dreamy effect when "everything else disappears and you feel all alone" - although I was surrounded by hundreds of tired, cranky flight passengers!

In short, I dont know why but that train sequence immediately touched me, even now when few years have passed by, and I have seen that scene multiple times - but still when I see that scene I feel something which is hard to explain. Even that song is always on "Top Played" song list in my itunes! :)

That movie itself is one of my favorites, there are other scenes in movie which I like too - eg. the one where Lucy takes away the big drape of clothe from the "wardrobe" or the one where she goes again followed by her brother Edmund - so dreamy... still my fav part of the movie is undoubtedly that train sequence.

Hmm!

Come to think of it ... this fascination with trains could be because of the train journeys I have gone through with my family (papa, mom & bhaiya) in my earlier years - like every summer vacation going to meet relatives, cousins when I was very young ... I think I used to wait whole year for those train journeys ... I think I loved to watch the landscape from the train (still do)

I can even recommend two of my most frequented and favorite train routes -

Chandrapura to Patna on "Superfast" train :) [Map] -

This journey starts from an Industrial / coal mine belt of Bihar - the chota nagpur area - then it goes to more green places in Bihar, I think it passes some of the greenest parts and probably deepest "ghati's" of Bihar. The Ghatis (valley) are so deep that one would have goose bumps just looking down the window. Lastly, I think my favourite part was those three tunnels it used to cross on that route, I think it was of favorite of almost everyone on that train (when train used to come out of tunnel - I think 80% of passengers used to have smiles on their faces . rest 20% looked indifferent, like it was just a short blip to whatever they were doing - like reading, chatting etc)

Delhi to Gaya on Neelanchal/Puri express [Map]-

These trips were taken later part of my years (age 10-16 I guess) ... most of these trips were accompanied by Mom. Chatting with Mom and watching landscape was the usual pass time, but not enough to cover whole journey, so I started adding more ideas on those journeys - like carrying a diary and noting down things. Like, one wierd idea was to note down each and every station that comes en route. (there are 10-15 "big stations" on that route, they come on interval of 1-2 hours each. However every 3-4 minute the train passes "small stations", which are small enough for the "express" train to not stop there.)
Now, this was a good passtime, as I was able to enjoy landscape and do something "productive" :) .... the problem was I was not able to jot down the complete list in one journey - because a) I used to be asleep half of the time and b) the train runs at high speed, so it is easy to miss if you are not attentive enough.
You can imagine that I had to get prepared/attentive before the station is coming (usual signs were field will start disappearing, the train tracks will start increasing - like one track is giving birth to two tracks etc :D ... and you can guess how "big" the station is by observing the number of track increase)
Finally I had the complete list after 3-4 tours of the same route (means 3-4 years, since we used to go each summer vacation) - that list later became one of my proud possession :). In later journeys I will still carry that diary with me ... just to predict exactly how many minutes it will take to reach next "big station", and amuse my mom & brother and fellow passengers. Note - the usual "train time tables" only used to have "big station names" but my database had both big & small train stations! ... see! :)

Looks like I am getting carried away on this topic :) ... but that will explain my passion for this topic :)

So, anyways, there are still many more journeys which I have not taken yet, which I plan to do some point of my life - India is such a big country, the most of which I have not seen. Places where I feel I am suppose to go, but have not been yet. People I feel I am suppose to meet, but have not met.

for now, I can just dream on ... thinking that someday I will! ... probably someday I will have complete database of all small stations all across India!! :D

PS - Image Credit

Found the image here - with a caption of - "A rare photo of Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and bullock carts" --- ca. 1930, Darjeeling, India --- A steam driven passenger train negotiates a bend on a narrow track which descends towards Darjeeling. Two "brake men" ride at the rear of the end carriage. --- Image by © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS

Dalai Lama = Chinese Hacker!? ... lol :)

2010-04-08T17:30:00.009-05:00

See this picture (I noticed on news.google.com)

When you see it, you'll think Dalai Lama is the Chinese Hacker!

But when you read fine prints, you'll see Dalai Lama's office as just one of the targets ... so I guess nobody to blame, since the news is automatically aggregated by google software, but still this is funny on so many levels! :)

Ken, Caravan, Swades, Planes ....

2010-03-18T18:08:00.005-05:00

Take a look at this pic first-

So ... at work today, my next cubicle neighbour "Ken" - who is the one of the most knowledgeable and helpful person at work - said to me "do you want to see my car pics?

At first I was like "what?" ... and then thought "ah ok!" ... and then thought "did he said what i think he said" ...

But I said "sure! why not!? ... you bought a car lately? show me the pics"

And then he showed me these pics of the new van he bought and I was totally blown away! :) ...

I was like - Woowwwww!

I was like - Awesomeeeeeee!

I was like - Mind blowing!

Quoting panda "He was so deadly, in fact, that his enemies would go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness! "

In fact, I felt so happy and maybe somewhat proud also that now I know someone who actually owns a Caravan ... ! :) ... just kidding :) ...

Ken promised he will bring the van someday to office :) ... I am now sincerely waiting for that day :)

I showed these pics to Smita also and she said the same thing that came to my mind too - it reminded us of the BOLLYWOOD movie Swades where Shahrukh takes a Caravan in India to visit his "Kaveri Amma" at an Indian village "Charanpur" ... and when his friend asked why does he need a Caravan - Mohan Bhargav (the NRI returned) said - are yaar! gaon mein rehne ka kya intezam hoga kya pata? (oh my friend! who knows what lodging arrangements will be there at the village)

... Swades has simple incidents like this in the movie, which make it my fav movie, but that deserves a separate post.

Anyways, while later Ken showed me another awesome thing that I didnt know. He showed me some of this bookmarks for "Buying Planes" :) ...

Again when he first said "buying planes" I was first like "what?" ... and then thought "ah ok!" ... and then thought "did he said what i think he said"

I mean I sincerely thought he is saying "buying plane tickets" and I told that to Ken too ... Ken said no he really means "buying planes" :) ... He (and one other colleague Morgan) then explained me how buying plane is another usual thing in America. (maybe not so usual, but still, its a concept which I dont think I have heard ever in India)

So just now I searched on google and I did find some websites to buy and sell planes-

http://www.aso.com/

http://www.buyplanesforsale.com/

http://www.aerotrader.com/

Awesome! ... Buying and selling planes online like we do for Cars - an industry which I was totally unaware till today! (and I consider myself an ecommerce expert!!)

While I was talking to them, I remembered I have actually seen it in many HOLLYWOOD movies - so I thought probably rich American farmers have it - cuz I remember something similar from the "Pearl Harbor" movie .

I asked Ken and Morgan too - "so who buys these planes? is it farmers?"

Ken said - "No ... it is usual people like you and me. Say someone is staying in Pennsylvania and need to travel to Florida frequently. Think about how much time he saves if he buys a plane"

I thought ok fine, but what about the cost to buy a plane!... So Me and morgan glanced over pricetag of one plane too - it was around $500K ... which actually didnt sound that bad as I thought. I mean it is still half a million, but whatever, nothing beats owning a plane... right? :)

Ken and Morgan further educated me that it is actually the maintenance that costs more (reminds me of an Indian saying we have - one must be rich if he owns an elephant ... or one saying I read one time advising that hiring a carpenter sometimes is so costly that it is like getting elephant sitting at your home) ...

In short ... owning an Elephant in India is similar to owning a plane in America ... funny but true!! :)

Ken said you need to get your plane recertified after certain hours (1000 / 2000 hours) - Morgan added that is "flying hours". (ok- sounded like the annual car registration thing that we need to do ... lol, itz hard for me to leave my "car mentality" :) )

Ken added that you cannot add any accessory to your plane or try doing any modification yourself to the plane. You need to get a certified professional to help you. Say you want to add a bag on the sideway of your plane, you cannot do, you need a certified professional.

It made sense to me ... because aerodynamics is a field you dont want to mess with ... unless you are a bumblebee lol :) (quoting Shiv Khera)-

According to scientists, the bumblebee's body is too heavy and its wingspan too small for it to be able to fly. But the bumblebee doesnt know that and it keeps flying.
When you don't know your limitations, you go out and surprise yourself!

So I further asked them - where do they keep those planes? I mean is it possible to keep it at your home in pennsylvania and then fly from there to your other home at Florida? ... Morgan said there are some communities in America - yes - which have things like that. Ken added usually it is at/nearby airport - at/nearby hangers.

Lastly, Morgan told me something more that I didn't know - John Travolta is one of those guys who owns planes - he actually owns a Boeing 707!!! ... haha, awesome!! - so he keeps them at home. He is also a pilot, and probably has affiliation with some airline company ... and flies for them. (Ken added - big money!) ... Morgan didnt remember which airline company, but just now I found it on wiki (it is Qantas)-

Travolta is a certified pilot and owns five aircraft, including an ex-Australian Boeing 707-138 airliner. The plane bears the name Jett Clipper Ella in honor of his children. Pan American World Airways was a large operator of the Boeing 707 and used Clipper in its names. The 707 aircraft bears the marks of Qantas, as Travolta acts as an official goodwill ambassador for the airline wherever he flies. His $4.9 million estate in the Jumbolair subdivision in Ocala, Florida, is situated on Greystone Airport with its own runway and taxiway right to his front door

More about John Travlota piloting career is here.

So ... that is enough knowledge for ONE day! :) .. like they say you learn something new everyday!

Budget 2010: Income Tax Comparison between 2010 and 2009

2010-02-26T22:10:00.006-05:00

Dr Pranab Mukherjee presented the budget today for this year. And, like all years, the one thing that Aam Aadmi like me looks in the budget is Income Tax related changes.

This year also Pranab da changed few things in Income tax which actually looks good to me so far.

One of my favourite finance bloggers Deepak put a very basic tax calculator / comparison tool where you can compare how much benefit or tax saving you will have this year viz-a-viz last year.

I took lead from him and put my own excel to chart out the differences for INDIAN MAN having annual taxable income between 2.5L to 10L . (emphasis is on "MAN" as women and senior citizens have slightly different income tax rates)

The results of this excel may not be rocket science, but to the excel fanatic I am - it provides a easy to understand representation of how this budget benefits different income slabs in India. (like they say - I am the "visual" kind of person)

Here is Income Tax Slab for last year [Source:wiki]

No income tax is applicable on all income up to Rs. 1,60,000 per year. (Rs. 1,90,000 for women and Rs. 2,40,000 for senior citizens)
From 1,60,001 to 3,00,000 : 10% of amount greater than Rs. 1,60,000 (Lower limit changes appropriately for women and senior citizens)
From 3,00,001 to 5,00,000 : 20% of amount greater than Rs. 3,00,000 + 14,000 (slightly less for women and further less for senior citizens)
Above 5,00,000 : 30% of amount greater than Rs. 5,00,000 + 54,000 (slightly less for women and further less for senior citizens)

And the new announced tax slabs for 2010-11 are as follows:

No income tax is applicable on all income up to Rs. 1,60,000 per year.
From 1,60,001 to 5,00,000 : 10% of amount greater than Rs. 1,60,000
From 5,00,001 to 8,00,000 : 20% of amount greater than Rs. 5,00,000 + 34,000
Above 8,00,000 : 30% of amount greater than Rs. 8,00,000 + 94,000

Note - there is one interesting thing I noticed this time that there is no "women" or "senior citizen" specific announcements this year. No comments on that for now.

Before we proceed any further, the usual Disclaimer: This is NOT tax advice. This is educational material only. Use your own mind before you make any decisions. I am anything but not a tax expert :)

Few other things to note-

1. This excel is based on Taxable Income - so it is not your Gross Salary or CTC.
To explain this, say you are getting a salary of 5 Lakhs per annum, but you have invested 1 Lakh in Section 80c and 1 Lakh as Home Loan Interest. That means your taxable income is 3 Lakhs per annum (not 5 Lakhs).

2. In my excel I have not factored in the additional Rs 20,000 tax deduction announced today related to Infrastructure bonds. That will surely put additional tax benefits on your hand, in my opinion lots of people will utilize that to lower their taxable income by additional Rs 20K.

So, whatever ... the thing we all love about excel is you can printout charts to visualize things - so the first chart I pulled out was to show how much additional income people will get per month in their paychecks.

As you can see, anyone earning below 3 Lakhs will NOT get any additional money on their hand this year compared to last year. (on a sidenote that means this budget should NOT be nicknamed "Aam Aadmi Budget", because that will infer that "Aam Aadmi = people having taxable income more than 3 Lakhs" - which I think is far from the reality... isnt it :-))

The good news - everyone above 3 Lakhs per annum will get some benefit on his take home salary, which will keep increasing till 8 Lakhs per annum and then will go constant at Annual benefit of Rs 51,500

Other thing I calculated was "Effective Tax%age" which is by dividing "Annual Tax" to that of "Annual taxable income".

On that I noticed that people having taxable income 3L will get 0.33% benefit this year - last year they were paying 5.32% tax (effectively) and this year they will be paying 4.98% (effectively)

That will keep growing till 8L income when people will have 6.44% benefit!! - last year they were paying 18.54% tax (effectively) and this year they will be paying 12.10% (effectively)

After that since the tax amount remains constant, but the base increases ... so the "Effective Tax %age Difference" comes down, but still it means everyone above 8L taxable income will get Annual benefit of Rs 51,500

I think there are other parts of the Budget which I will blog about in coming days... but that's it for a Friday evening.

The iPad Hulla Bol!

2010-02-20T10:39:00.011-05:00

There was too much hype about the tablet from Apple to be released in January 2010 - and release they did - The iPad.

Well ... I didnt like it in the first impression itself.

I still remember the iphone presentation by Steve Jobs which I saw 3 years ago. Jobs presentation skills deserve a separate post, but let's focus on the product in this post.

At that time, just looking at the product/presentation, I knew this is going to be a superhit with consumers and will grab a good share of the smartphone market (taking marketshare from smartphones like BB, palm treo etc) ... and it did. When I saw that presentation iphone was not released and there was not too much mention of it in mainstream media (geek blogs were full of it though) ... but my geeky sense told me it's gonna be something.

But my geeky sense is not that sure about the iPad. :|

It is still a month away till iPad will be released and only then we'll be able to know how it performs. Still, in last month, there were too many interesting reviews on iPad (mostly negative) and related tablet market . I will use this post mostly to aggregate those links.

The first one is review of iPad by none other than Hitler. (i have seen so many versions of this Hitler video, but the iPad one is best)

Next comes what I really felt about iPad - it is nothing but a bigger iPhone. [Source]

Can’t wait to get your hands on an iPad? Miffed that Amazon.de took down the iPad preorder page? Generally at the end of your rope?
Fortunately, there’s ~~an app~~ a peripheral for that: the iPhad. “Turn your iPhone into a full-fledged iPad with this easy to install add-on.”
Unfortunately, the “add to cart” button for the iPhad appears to be broken at Seven’s Heaven,the home of illustrator Metin Seven.
Some might say that tacking a magnifying glass onto an iPhone to turn it into an iPad is unwieldy — even satirical! — but we’re holding out hope.

The reviews on Lifehacker were the best one I read -

http://lifehacker.com/5460709/current-crop-of-e+readers-compared-ipad-vs-the-rest

Another review - http://lifehacker.com/5458690/the-problem-with-the-apple-ipad

FLASH SUPPORT

There was another thing which I read about iPad is it doesnt support flash (means will not play youtube videos, just for example). Moreover I read about Steve Jobs supporting that decision - rather than fixing it - saying HTML5 will have the functionalities that flash has. http://www.slate.com/id/2243422/
But I dont buy that argument. I think Jobs is overdoing his future-looking-thing, it might take a while for HTML5 to replace flash - and even if it does say in 5 years. Till that time Tablet market will be claimed.

Then there was one of the most comical comparison I saw - iPad vs Stone Tablet

There is hardly any difference between the two - except stone can do multitasking ... LOL :)

http://www.doobybrain.com/2010/01/27/ipad-vs-stone-tablet/

Lastly there was a youtube video summarizing it best - iPad Keynote in less than 180 Seconds: Incredible, Beautiful, Amazing!

This might be usual part of any presentation where you praise your product, but it definitely felt like Jobs and his team is pushing hard this product. They are doing it the INFOMERCIAL-way ... not doing the apple way - where you just create a good product and capture consumers imagination.

Anyways, let's now look at the competition, because almost every company is jumping on Bandwagon. First one I saw was Google's own tablet (still in concept stage)

http://lifehacker.com/5462336/chrome-os-tablet-demo-offers-a-peek-at-what-a-chrome-tablet-might-look-like

Next one I read was "Made in India" Adam ... and I have read good reviews about this tablet so far, still I am keeping my fingers crossed.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/Enter-Adam-the-iPad-killer-made-in-India/articleshow/5570642.cms

Hmm - long story short, the tablet market is just starting now, and I think it will create a marketplace of its own. But I dont think it will cannibalize notebook or netbook market, (umm maybe it will a little), but I think these all products will co-exist, your notebook/netbook will not be rendered useless.

The Future is Here!

2010-02-16T07:17:00.006-05:00

Last week I saw a video about Electric cars / GM's volt (see video at end) ... which also talks about Green energy / Solar panels etc.

Then today morning I read this bit from my friend Nitin, which finally triggered this long due post.

It led me to think that all this hoopla about Electric Cars / Green Energy is probably not mere noise ... there is a fundamental change that is happening which most of us are unaware about.

A change which is probably good for everyone - it is good for environment, for the energy consumers. Maybe bad for the oil companies, but think of it they have a huge market and limited supply say 50-100 years. So even if we start transitioning to green energy now, it will take at least 20-50 years to convert whole world to Green Energy, which per my understanding is the time left to us till we run out of fossil fuels.

Anyways, the best part that I liked about below video is, when they explain possibility of turning energy consumers to energy producers. See the bit between 6:00-7:00.

Let's say homes have solar panels installed and during a hot summer day the "smart home" realizes it has everything charged up and doesnt need anymore solar energy. Now rather than "switching off" energy consumption, it will start sending out the energy to other energy users.

Final result - the consumer (we) may end up getting 2000-4000 $ per year for electricity generation, rather than paying for electricity ... isnt that wonderful and amazing?

The future is here!

Internet Speed - India vs USA

2010-02-13T14:44:00.003-05:00

It is probably not fair to compare the two, still.

I read this article on trak.in about Google plans to experiment very high speed internet connection upto 1GB/s at selected US locations (see video at end).

Also saw this screenshot by the blog owner, Arun Prabhudesai, about the dismal Internet speed at India (screenshot below) ... as we can see the internet speed is hardly 0.4MBPS. (and this is broadband high speed connection, not the dialup types which we used to use 8 years back that kept loading forever)

Now, Last time I was at delhi, they used to charge around Rs 700 (I had Airtel broadband). (around 15.5$) ... although unitary methods should not be used for such cases but still by simple maths this turns out 30$ to use 1MB/s speed in India. (15.5$/0.5)

I thought to check internet speed at my home @ Pennsylvania to see how it turns out.

It turned out to be 20 MB/s!!

Now, I have comcast here and I pay around 45$ per month (incidentally, I used to pay 20$ promotional price for first six month.)

So in this case, it comes out around 2.25$ to use 1MB/s in US.

Summary - from elementary mathematics it sounds like we pay 10-15 times more in India, and we get a dismal service... still we have made some progress so far, so hopefully will improve upon in future.

Less said the better, we do have a long way to go.

PS - here is the video-

Is there really any difference at all?

2010-02-12T22:48:00.002-05:00

I am not a political expert (certainly not in American Politics), still...

George Bush vowed for War in Iraq.

Barack Obama is rooting for War in Afghanistan.

George Bush had government do uncontrolled spending, causing huge national debt.

Barack Obama - doesnt have a choice, has to todo same thing to bring economy back on its knee.

... I can keep on going, but they say pictures are worth thousand words ...

Below are the pictures I noticed, Barack Obama's one was the one I noticed few days back on facebook [here].

George Bush's picture is the one I noticed today. [here].

I gave you the links above so that you can check yourself that these are genuine pictures, not tampered with at all!! :)

A problem with UIDAI project - no clear directions after launch (integration with MAJOR systems)

2010-02-07T16:37:00.013-05:00

I am not sure about this, but seeing this video about the Unique ID project headed by Nandan Nilekani - raised few questions in my mind.

First watch the video-

Note - there was the funny part at the end where seemingly there was some technical glitch from news channel and we had some "doordarshan moment" when the anchor was totally unaware that he is live... but I am not talking about that. :)

In the first part of this brief interview, Nandan clearly mentions the deadlines of project:-

* 12-18 months for Pilot (that is around end of 2010)

* Around 5 years (2014-2015) will be when the project be "implemented" which means around 600 million Indians will get UID (that will be roughly 50% of India's population at that time). I am sure the project will go beyond that to cover 100% of India's population, although Nandan did not define that timeframe ... but I am ok with it, because it is difficult to predict that schedule at this time.

Note the tone of professionalism and clear vision coming from a "Minister" - that is the reason we need more technocrats/educated people at these critical positions. It is definitely a soother and great change from the traditional - totally opposed to the vague answers we get from our minister sahibs. Even if the usual Indian minister gives you a deadline - you will have to ignore that - because it will have no base or substance to back that deadline. (example - Pranab Mukherjee saying in 2009-10 Budget that VAT will be implemented by April 2010 - which everyone knew is not going to happen because of the coordinations involved between various state governments and central government. I believe his motive was not to misguide us - but he just wanted to put a date so that everyone at least have a vision about the horizon.)

Anyways, let us not diverge and come back to Nandan - in the later part of the interview he was asked "what kind of applications is he looking at - where UID could be used?" - once again Nandan very clearly explained it - UID is just a unifier, not the real application. He defined the scope of UID project and said that other systems (like Passport, Ration card, NREGA) will have to come forward to use this number.

So far so good - but I think what lacked here (and all other publications/news I have read so far about UIDAI) is how/when/what will be those integrations with other systems be done?

Important- without those integrations, UID project has no significance. See this video-

Note - UID will become just a "status symbol" without those integrations, I mean it will be of no real use to have UID. (I also do not agree with one woman's complaint when she lost her voter ID card and demaned UID should be accepted. I dont agree to that. UID is just a supporting system, not a replacement for Voter ID, per my understanding.)

Also, I do agree it is not in Nandan's project scope to talk about those integrations. But from Nandan's tone, it sounded like those projects will need to be totally "owned" and "driven" by those respective system owners.

I dont agree with that.

In my opinion, UID has two distinct customers -

1. Indian Citizens (who will use the card)

2. Various Governance Systems (who will also use the number, they are real UID clients)

From my limited IT experience, I know that an integration project is successful only when both the parties become the owners, that is when both the parties see the benefit coming out of the project. In our IT projects, it is usually vendor-client relation. The client benefits from the functionality, while the Vendor benefits from the revenues of the implementation.

So if only one of the party owns the integration, that integration project will have lots of problem. The final solution will be delayed, it will be defective and it will be full of issues.

So I think their are serious questions that need to be answered here-

* What other MAJOR systems will be integrated with UID?

I said MAJOR - because the list is endless. Potentially all government systems could and will be integrated to UID.

* Who will own and drive those MAJOR integrations?

Will it be UIDAI? Will it be respective system owner? or will it be joint ownership as I explained above?

* When would those other systems be integrated with UID?

In my opinion, just like UID launch project .. those MAJOR implementation project also should clearly define plans and deadlines. Say - year 2020 as deadline for passport-UID integration, 2025 for Ration Card-UID integration ... I am just cooking up numbers to explain my point.

* How will other systems be integrated with UID?

The approach will also need to be well thought of to avoid duplication in effort, and saving time and money. It will be better if that approach is thought of now.

Say - what will be the implication of those integrations from a common man's perspective - Would a common man need to go out and get UID in 2014, then go out and get PAN card updated with UID in 2016, then get passport updated in 2017, then get ration card updated in 2017 (assuming that is when those integration projects will be implemented)

Imagine coordinating with 1 Billion people on these implementations on year to year basis ... that is a food for a big mess. It will be a BIG wastage of time and resources if 1 Billion people has to come out every year to get one of their cards updated. Think about logistics to manage that!!

So - why not plan it now?

One possible solution - launch UID to general public in two phases - first the UID creation and second UID integration with Major systems.

So those 1 Billion people will need to come out TWO TIMES -

* First to get UID - government will do biometrics required for UID.

* Second time they will furnish to government every information related to them - passport #, PAN#, ration card# etc - or better if government can himself pull out that information (which could be messy actually) - but everything will be done at one shot.

This is just one idea, I am sure if Nandan's team gives 10 minutes to those integration projects now, they will find 10 better solutions.

Maybe these things have already been decided at government level but not made public yet, and will come in due time. So I guess we will have to wait and watch for now.

Updated Later

I read this writeup later, which I think was released by UIDAI themselves (probably leaked?)

Anyways, it does answer few of my questions vaguely.

Read this-

The Registrars that the Authority plans to partner with in its first phase – the NREGA, RSBY, and PDS – will help bring large numbers of the poor and underprivileged into the UID system.

So, the first phase itself will include integration with few systems! Good news!

Jut like I mentioned in my post that there are two distinct clients of UID, this document also says similar thing (they said three - third one being government as a whole)

BENEFITS

For residents : The UID will become the single source of identity verification. Once residents enrol, they can use the number multiple times – they would be spared the hassle of repeatedly providing supporting identity documents each time they wish to access services such as obtaining a bank account, passport, driving license, and so on. By providing a clear proof of identity, the UID will also facilitate entry for poor and underprivileged residents into the formal banking system, and the opportunity to avail services provided by the government and the private sector. The UID will also give migrants mobility of identity.

For Registrars and enrollers: The UIDAI will only enrol residents after de-duplicating records. This will help Registrars clean out duplicates from their databases, enabling significant efficiencies and cost savings. For Registrars focused on cost, the UIDAI’s verification processes will ensure lower KYR costs. For Registrars focused on social goals, a reliable identification number will enable them to broaden their reach into groups that till now, have been difficult to authenticate. The strong authentication that the UID number offers will improve services, leading to better resident satisfaction.

For Governments: Eliminating duplication under various schemes is expected to save the government exchequer upwards of Rs. 20,000 crores a year. It will also provide governments with accurate data on residents, enable direct benefit programs, and allow government departments to coordinate investments and share information.

The other thing which I remember I read/saw somewhere else also that this is being developed as revenue generating / service oriented model.

Revenue model
By providing identity authentication, the UIDAI will be taking on a process that costs agencies and service providers hundreds of crores every year. The Authority will charge a fee for its authentication services, which will offset its long -term costs. Registrars and service providers will also be able to charge for the cards they issue residents with the UID number. Such pricing will be within UIDAI guidelines.

There are still questions to be answered - like when it will be integrated to the systems that affect me - the middle class of India - like passport, ration card, voter id card etc.

But I am sure people are already thinking. So we need not be worried. (let's hope for the best!!)

How to get into your own Bathroom!?

2010-02-04T22:51:00.001-05:00

It's a long due post (I drafted long back - 12/13/09, but never completed), so here you go........

----------------------------------------

I had a terrific dinner tonight (home made tandoori roti and chilli chicken, thanks to Smita, my lovely wife).

So after finishing up the dinner I went to bathroom to wash my hands and what I see -

"We have locked ourself out from the bathroom, it got locked from inside!!"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was not surprised really (because it happened with us 2nd time, umm 3rd actually, 1st time it happened with bathroom, 2nd time with bedroom) ... but I was disappointed - why me? ... come on, not again. :(

So I went back to kitchen to inform Smita, and umm, wash my hands too. When I told Smita, she smiled back at me thinking I must be kidding (things like this doesnt happen on Sunday night 9:30pm... right?) ... wrong! ... Smita looked at me again and saw I am not kidding - what!!! again!!?? .... I said (like it's my fault) - umm, yeah (with a sorry tone) .... and I added to my defence - "so, umm, who went last time to bathroom" (that was not relevant i know, but I couldnt come up with anything else to defend myself)

annnnnnyways!

so, what next? well, the good thing about it happening for the third time is I have the emergency phone number for maintenance guyz ... but last 2 time both me and Smita observed how they unlocked the lock using screw driver etc... and Smita must be reading my mind, so she asked to do try it ourself if we can unlock it.

I still feared if we'll break anything we will be charged humongous amount (I have heard about similar stories) - so maybe we should better leave it for professionals - but then I thought maybe we can give it a try, why not, we will stop at the point when we feel we are breaking anything.

So, both Smita and I went back to bathroom door with a screw driver, now another problem - it was a philips screw - so it needed that four headed crossed philips screw driver!

So I thought to accept my defeat, but then I saw my wife coming up from kitchen with a "Peeler"

I thought to myself, ok right! like that is gonna work!? ... hah! ... my wife started giving it a try, but we felt we are doing it wrong... so I said - leave it ... let me call maintenance.

As the luck'll have it - even Maintenance guy doesnt wanted to come out 10pm - He asked 50$ for coming - when I asked in most humble voice isnt it supposed to be free, he said that is during the day, not during like middle of night.

He further added we should try opening the lock ourself. He explained some technicalities too over the phone - which all went over my head. Sensing my tone he said - "why dont you just give it a try, I will give you a visit tomorrow morning anyways to see if it worked out for you" - I thought that sounds reasonable. So said ok.

Now, Me vs the Door - again - I manage to do the first part correctly - open the screws and push a part of lock back to fall inside the bathroom. But the 2nd part was to somehow "click the lock open with screw driver" - which even after 5 minute desperate tries with screwdriver - I was not able to do.

I remember searching on internet too - and I think I even found the patent page for the lock - but that all was not helpful.

I dont remember if it was Smita's idea or mine (I think it was Smita's idea) - but we decided to now try it on a Bedroom door lock :) .... since that door was already open - so I can look both side of the door lock - and can understand the mechanics - and if we mess up anything, the doorman is coming next day anyways.

So, I tried with bedroom door and figured out the trick. I went back to bathroom door, tried the same trick - CLICK - and the door opened.

I cannot tell you the joy when this happened (rather unexpectedly) ... even my wife was so happy and proud of me - I just cannot tell you! ... I guess even I felt like a Macho Husband! :D ... LOL :)

So, anyways, all is well that ends well!

There is No Free Lunch ... There is No Free Windows 7 Upgrade!!!

2010-01-28T20:52:00.013-05:00

So few weeks back my laptop got infected with highly annoying and stubborn viruses and spywares, which wont let me use the laptop the way I wanted to use. (constant google redirects, forced reboots ... you know it all ... right?) ... they wont go away no matter how many anti virus softwares I will install.

Still I tried fighting with them for a week (which deserves another blog post) ... then I gave up and brought out the brahmastra (The recovery CD) ... and formatted everything. I had no inhibitions in formatting because my data was safe via windows live sync to another laptop which again deserves another blog post.

First - I had windows XP installed originally, but the laptop manufacturer (Lenovo) gave me Windows Vista Recovery CD for some reason - unknowingly or knowingly.

I didnt want to upgrade to Vista because of many software incompatibility stories I heard - But since I had no option so I said - what they heck, lets try it - ALL IZ WELL!!

Then someone on my facebook friends list said why dont try Windows 7, which was a great idea as I have read good review about Windows 7 ... and I know my laptop manufacturer was offering Free Windows 7 Upgrade.

I went to Lenovo site and clicked on the so tempting link of "click here to request free windows 7 upgrade" and was redirected to a site which looked like a third party non lenovo site - Mentor Media Corp - so this free upgrade is being done by some other company? maybe? do I care? maybe? maybe not? what the heck - ALL IZ WELL? ... But soon I realized this site had the MOST HORRIBLE WEB ORDER FORM i have ever filled - you know those forms which keep refreshing the page whenever you click a field - no matter which field you click- no matter how many times you click - still AAL IZ WELL - I said to myself again.

I clicked clicked clicked - and on final submission page noticed 17$ shipping - what? 17$ to ship a freaking CD? then why are they calling it Free in the first place? Isnt it a shameless lie to call it free and then charge you?

What the .... AAL IZ WELL AAL IZ WELL ... I clicked the submit button.

And lo - "you have got mail" with something which they didnt mention up until now - I will need to send them "Proof of Purchase" - why didnt they tell me before in BOLD LETTERS - I am sure it must have been in some small text somewhere. What if I didnt have "proof of purchase"? Isnt things like should be told to customer before getting the order. I mean how many times I will need to tell myself AAL IZ WELL?

Anyways, I searched my gmail and found the original NewEgg.com receipt for the purchase. So I zipped it and send to email address.

Then I waited and waited and waited for a week... up until today.

No email reply.

Finally today I realized this will not be easy and it is just the beginning. I searched on internet and read their support forum and found almost everyone is having issues. People are getting there "free CD" after 3-4 months!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ... Whoa! 3-4 months!! is it stone age or what?

Hmm ... my order status page is still showing "pending for proof of purchase" Since I dont see anyway out, so I just emailed them again my proof of purchase and will fax it too tomorrow.

Now I try to learn from these experiences - I dont know whether I will get chance to implement those learnings ever in my carrier, but still. I think it is good to learn from your own bad experience so that you can avoid it when you are on the other side - Reminds me of recent movie I saw this week "ROCKET SINGH" although the movie was nothing great but it had nice motto - only way to grow a company is to have good and sensible customer service. That is it.

Anyways, I think one of the main reason this chaos is because it is labelled "free" ... So there is a huge rush of customers - which I dont know why didnt they foresee and prepared in advance. I think most big companies these days are totally insensitive to bad customer service. We have seen it all - Comcast, Bank of America etc in USA ... Airtel, ICICI etc at India ... it is the story everywhere. Like for Lenovo, it looks to me they are totally aware about the bad customer service but they have this implicit excuse "since its free, so it is the bad service .. take it or leave it"

I think they could have done some simple things to improve customer experience here like telling the customer beforehand about the order backlog ... so that customer gets mentally prepared before placing the order .... and those who doesnt want to wait can order from somewhere else (even Microsoft is selling windows 7 for 200$ it seems)

Another option could be to have a "premium processing option" say charging 50-100$ .. so that customer have at least an option to choose better service for more money... or stick to bad service for less money.

I am sure if someone at corporate spends 10 minutes thinking over it - they will find 10 better solutions.

Anyways, I am still telling ALL IZ WELL to me and hoping I will get my free Windows 7 shipped to me in next 2-3 months. Let's see.

जाडे की धूप by सर्वेश्वर दयाल सक्सेना

2010-01-24T13:05:00.008-05:00

I think I read this poem long time back, it's about winter season and sunshine, by a noted Hindi poet - Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena [some of his other poems can be found here]

[Source]

बहुत दिनों बाद मुझे धूप ने बुलाया

ताते जल नहा पहन श्वेत वसन आयी

खुले लान बैठ गयी दमकती लुनायी

सूरज खरगोश धवल गोद उछल आया।

बहुत दिनों बाद मुझे धूप ने बुलाया।

नभ के उद्यान-छत्र तले मेज : टीला,

पड़ा हरा फूल कढ़ा मेजपोश पीला,

वृक्ष खुली पुस्तक हर पृष्ठ फड़फड़ाया।

बहुत दिनों बाद मुझे धूप ने बुलाया।

पैरों में मखमल की जूती-सी-क्यारी,

मेघ ऊन का गोला बुनती सुकुमारी,

डोलती सलाई हिलता जल लहराया।

बहुत दिनों बाद मुझे धूप ने बुलाया।

बोली कुछ नहीं, एक कुर्सी की खाली,

हाथ बढ़ा छज्जे की साया सरकाली,

बाँह छुड़ा भागा, गिर बर्फ हुई छाया।

बहुत दिनों बाद मुझे धूप ने बुलाया।

- सर्वेश्वर दयाल सक्सेना